Author | YA Urban Fantasy

#PitMad is this Week!!!

Imagine me with a megaphone. Here, I sit bellowing at you – yes, you aspiring authors out there – because the madness and mayhem of #PitMad is coming.

While many know and love #PitMad, let’s give a quick explanation for those who don’t. The lovely and wonderful Brenda Drake has set up a pitch contest on Twitter. It happens quarterly, and the next one falls on December 1st 2016. Yes, the date is correct. That’s this Thursday!

140 characters is not a lot. Also, I’d highly suggest taking advantage of genre hashtags (i.e. #YA #UF for Young Adult Urban Fantasy). The link above leads to a list of shorthand just for this competition.

My top 3 tips going in:

Follow the rules.

Prepare ahead of time.

Don’t participate if you don’t have a completed manuscript.

My top 3 when you get a request:

Research first – look at websites, look at Absolute Write, talk to your peers, etc

Submit only to those you trust / feel you can work with

Include the tweet they picked even if they don’t request you to do so.

The last one makes the agents’ lives a lot easier. They go through hundreds of tweets for us, so be kind.

I’ve avoided contests since my contract, but I might participate if I don’t have edits clogging my free time. Feel free to comment below to get a free opinion on your tagline.